“We must stop fire this week. Each day when people are dying, each day when Ukraine is paying such a high price is unacceptable to me. That is why we must first of all resume the work of the state border to guarantee security to each citizen of Ukraine who lives in Donbass [a coal-bearing area in Ukraine’s east, incorporates the Donetsk region], regardless of political views he or she might have,” the press service of the Ukrainian head of state quoted Poroshenko as saying at the first meeting of the contact group on the implementation of the peace plan in Ukraine’s southeastern regions.

He stressed that the parties must work on the implementation of agreements reached at a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Normandy.

The meeting of the contact group was also attended by Ukrainian Ambassador to Berlin Pavel Klimkin, special representative of the OSCE secretary general Heidi Tagliavini and Russian Ambassador to Kiev Mikhail Zurabov. Poroshenko suggested that the contact group should meet every day to coordinate further actions aiming at the implementation of the peace settlement plan.